Underground Construction - July 2017 - 17

Industry resources - Many industry associations
do not offer training as part of their mission, although many of their member companies do. In
order to appeal to young people, organizations
are offering online training through social media venues such as YouTube. These options can
result in high numbers of views at a very low
cost, and offer the ability to communicate in a
way the industry has never seen before.
Electronic vs. hard copies of training materials continues to be debated, and demand for
some of the more technical training content in
writing will always be present. The smart players are continually working to stay updated and
meet today's ever-changing training needs.

tractors are increasingly dealing directly with
their customers to ensure workers are appropriately trained to perform all the job functions
expected by the operator.

Wrap-up
The workshop ended with a moderated wrap-up
session where attendees told workshop leaders

what they liked and would like to see in the
future. Issues such as workforce development,
OQ portability and the future of the GSS program all sparked considerable discussion and
will likely continue to do so. Attendees suggested panels on SMS, facility locating, how operators can improve their systems and regulatory
issues in the new administration would be of
interest at future workshops.

PIPE RAMMING PROS
DEPEND ON HAMMERHEAD®

HDD risk mitigation
The issue of HDD and many technologies,
available training and other related topics has
grown in interest since the first workshop only
three years ago. A panel of contractors and a
GPS technology expert provided a thorough
discussion of how workers are prepared to perform HDD functions in the field, and how risks
in the field are identified and mitigated as they
surface.
The audience was reminded of DCA's position paper on cross bore mitigation, which was
developed a few years ago as a proactive way
to describe what contractors do to avoid such
situations that sometimes occur during HDD
and other trenchless applications. Because they
adhere to a range of practices and procedures,
contractors are often in the best position to
address a cross bore when one is encountered.
Utilities and their locators have to do everything possible to locate and mark underground
facilities, and all operators, including municipalities, need to belong to their respective One-call
center. Sewer mains and laterals, often operated my municipal governments, are often left
unlocated and common sources of a dangerous
cross bore.
While contractors consider safety to be paramount, there are other motivations for HDD.
Including, reduced traffic disruption and increased project efficiency also offer advantages.
Evolving technologies are making HDD more
effective than ever, both in terms of locating
underground facilities and sharing data in real
time from the field to the office across multiple
locations. Using effective video and graphics,
the panel ran through camera inspection, GISbased mapping, digital job recording and other
practices.
As in previous panel discussions on this subject, the importance of training and elaborate
onboarding processes were underscored. ConJuly 2017 Underground Construction

EQUIPMENT.

EXPERTISE.

SUPPORT.

We had a very challenging pipe ramming project to do in an
extremely sensitive area with a number of critical requirements-
one of them being the pipe's 108-inch diameter. While we
had plenty of experience with pipe jacking, we had limited experience
ramming a pipe with this large a diameter before, and there was no
time to experiment. It was definitely the outstanding communication
and cooperation between the HammerHead and Drill Tech engineering
departments that set us up for a successful ram. We also had one of
their field engineers on site with their 34-inch hammer through the whole
project. We will definitely be working with HammerHead again."
DESMOND BLAKE

Project engineer
Drill Tech Drilling & Shoring Inc.
Antioch and Corona CA; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

HammerHead Equipment products and expertise take the guesswork
out of pipe ramming. And legendary factory support puts even the
toughest pipe ramming jobs within your reach.

Find your local dealer at hammerheadtrenchless.com
or call 800-331-6653

ucononline.com

http://www.hammerheadtrenchless.com http://www.ucononline.com

Underground Construction - July 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Underground Construction - July 2017